Why do people reject evolution?

[The Lunatic]

Just one of those things.

Evolution is quite simply, a fact.

To deny it is... An interesting choice, but, if that's what you want to do, fine.

While you're at it, the grass is purple.

Belief and denial are very different things.

Belief implies there's some doubt.

There's no doubt that evolution happened.

Added to this, evolution and religion are two very different things.

The concept of evolution requires an advanced knowledge of life on Earth, one we only established after thousands of years of study. So, no, you won't find it in a book from 2000 years ago.

 

[BrassButtons]

I've had it explained to me a number of times by people who sounded like they were knowledgable about the subject. Every time, no matter what level of education I was at, all I could think was "This sounds asinine". So there you go.

What sounds asinine about it?

 

[Vault101]

This, unless you were being ironic. Or a troll.

you know we evolved from apes and not monkeys right?
[quote/]I believe in what I believe. But I believe it's fucking stupid to think that we just "evolved" to get to where we are from some species that was similar to us. Talk about down right depressing. This means, that we all don't matter, not one soul in the world matters. We are nothing. Fuck that.[/quote]
stupid how?

do you need a thousand year book to tell us we are special? you only need to look around and actually realise "holy shit we exist" weather ot not there is an afterlife is a different issue alltogether

[quote/]I understand how evolution works. But I don't deny the presence of a higher power. Apparently it's impossible to understand or believe both.
And the countdown to Quotes that say "You're stupid for believing in religion, blah blah blah!" come up......[/quote]
and yet you think beliving in evolution is stupid...

 

[Kopikatsu]

The idea that one day that a fish would grow legs and start walking around was always just silly sounding to me.

...? You know that there are fish like that, right? We used to have them on our farm. They're called Walking Catfish, although there are other fish that can 'walk' on land. (They don't have legs, but they can traverse land using their fins)

There are also Lungfish, which...well...can breathe air through their lungs. Macro evolution is definitely a thing, but the key word there is macro. It takes tens of thousands to millions of years to occur. It's not something that can be easily observed.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Timeline_of_human_evolution Check the dates, yo.

 

[Terminate421]

My ancestors weren't monkeys ok, is that what you want to teach your kids? Bring your child to the zoo and bring them to the chimps and points to them then say' Look its your gradparents wave hello and give them a kiss."? No! That is not right we come from the bible like God says Adam and Eve not Davey and Steve and there was a snake.
So I say to you look in your heart and see that God made you and he made you very special and you are not made from monkeys.

This, unless you were being ironic. Or a troll.

I believe in what I believe. But I believe it's fucking stupid to think that we just "evolved" to get to where we are from some species that was similar to us. Talk about down right depressing. This means, that we all don't matter, not one soul in the world matters. We are nothing. Fuck that.

I understand how evolution works. But I don't deny the presence of a higher power. Apparently it's impossible to understand or believe both.

And the countdown to Quotes that say "You're stupid for believing in religion, blah blah blah!" come up......

Kudos for posting your statement in a thread started by a microbiologist with at least 3 biology students and one paleontologist (i guess?) in it. Not sarcasm btw. Unless you were being ironic or a troll then I totally knew that all the time!

Why should it be impossible to believe in religion and science? If the Vatican can accept evolution as a fact then it can't really be a general problem, can it?

It isn't a problem. Though I should ahve been far more clear about what I meant. According to most people I get in debate about this topic, on specifically the escapist forums, I cannot believe in god because I am a gay hating bible toting christian who doesn't believe in science and lives in the past.

It's quite the harsh stereotype.

 

[Ashadowpie]

i think the reason why people dont like realizing evolution is fact is because they dont want to know we were stupid monkey's in the past. its kinda degrading apparently.

to be honest, i feel proud as a human being to have evolved from something primitive, we struggled and endured as a species and got to the top. it is not degrading, its really cool actually.

 

[lacktheknack]

No one (outside of single-forum crazies) actually reject evolution as a concept. The theory of evolution is the reason we have "superbugs", good and bad bacteria, dog breeds, etc.

Now, the idea of "Evolution Created All Life" is rejected by many, and it's not really without reason. Even ignoring incompatibility with personal religion, we still have fun dilemmas like abiogenesis crop up, mathematical improbability, the requirement for an infinite universe (in terms of time), and such. It's all grounds to be skeptical.

Now, obviously, one should at least attempt to research it further, but the massive (almost purposeful) misunderstanding between the two sides makes it difficult to find what you're looking for. Shame on everyone, really.

 

[lacktheknack]

It isn't a problem. Though I should ahve been far more clear about what I meant. According to most people I get in debate about this topic, on specifically the escapist forums, I cannot believe in god because I am a gay hating bible toting christian who doesn't believe in science and lives in the past.

It's quite the harsh stereotype.

A hilariously inaccurate one, too.

I remember crushing people's dreams in a "Will We Ever Travel Faster Than Light?" thread, and I remember despairingly asking half a dozen people, who were outright ignoring my post contents, "I'm the Christian here! I'M supposed to be ignoring all the facts! What happened?!"

No one responded. I guess I'm too much of a paradox to answer.

 

[AwesomeWunderbar]

One of the strongest scientific theories to date, even stronger than the theory of Gravity

Gravity isn't a theory, it's a law.

 

[Marcus Kehoe]

The problem is that many people believe that if you believe in evolution, you believe humans came from monkeys.

 

[Something Amyss]

People aren't actually very fond of thinking for themselves. I'd wager a bunch of people who accept evolution have no more clue what the theory actually states and the evidence behind it than the people who reject it because they believe what they heard in church or on Fox News or whatever.

I'd suppose it is not the fact that they like to believe in a supernatural being but that those people chose to ignore scientific facts because that being tells them to in ancient scripture. Of course it isn't really anyone's business if John McAnyman likes to think that the world is 6000 years old, but the problem starts when that same guy gets elected to an education board and starts to pour his blatantly false believes into the public education system.
I hope I don't need to bother with examples because the US alone has a very special heart for those people.

Or when public opinion is carried in such a way that it influences scientific progress or technological advancement. Which is a little more generic than just acceptance of evolution, but it certainly doesn't hurt.

 

[Something Amyss]

One of the strongest scientific theories to date, even stronger than the theory of Gravity

Gravity isn't a theory, it's a law.

It's both. Or rather, there are both theories and laws that apply to gravity.

 

[Hagi]

One of the strongest scientific theories to date, even stronger than the theory of Gravity

What? Now I'm no scientist or anything, but is this a real claim, or an exaggeration for effect? Cuz if it's the latter (and I'm thinking it is) then cut it out, it doesn't help you.

There's a decent chance he might actually be right.

Gravity as in stuff that goes up comes back down again is pretty much proven, but if you go deeper than that you end up with things like the Higgs particle where there's still a lot of unknowns and questions.

Evolution we might just know more about. Between DNA, genes, epigenetics, genetic engineering etc. etc. there's a lot of background and, perhaps more importantly, testing.

We can make controlled evolution happen in a laboratory. I might be wrong but I haven't heard anything about us controlling gravity.

 

[tautologico]

Just one of those things.

Evolution is quite simply, a fact.

That's one side of the discussion I really don't like: when people start saying that evolution is a fact. It's not. It's a scientific model, a particular scientific model which is backed by a huge pile of evidence, but it's not a "fact" and never will be, unless the hypothetical creator of the universe itself suddenly appears and tells us "yes, this is exactly how it works"

 

[The Lunatic]

That's one side of the discussion I really don't like: when people start saying that evolution is a fact. It's not. It's a scientific model, a particular scientific model which is backed by a huge pile of evidence, but it's not a "fact" and never will be, unless the hypothetical creator of the universe itself suddenly appears and tells us "yes, this is exactly how it works"

It's about as factual as we can make it so.

Thus, it's a fact.

Technically, anything in possible, we could all be living in a computer simulation and everything we know could be a lie, but, frankly, we can only really assume that 99% sure is as good as 100% sure with these things.

 

[StashAugustine]

Some are Bible-literalists who reject it because it doesn't fit with the 7-days account from Genesis. Others (although this is less common nowadays, more when the theory was first introduced) disagree because they think that claiming human descent from animals will lower the value of human life (which, to be fair, is an argument some have made).

 

[Lugbzurg]

Let's look at a few things. One moment, Evolution says that little cells slowly evolved into complex lifeforms. Next, it says that these complex lifeforms start devolving into simpler lifeforms.

You can't have a slowly-developing heart, brain, lung or any of that. There are several important parts that must all be there right from the get-go, or the creature will die.

Considering that these lifeforms are supposed to evolve into some better creature, how is it at all likely that two lifeforms could end up being compatible after evolution has taken place for any number of generations?

I'd recommend looking up Incredible Creatures that Defy Evolution. There's blatant proof that there is indeed a grand creator. You've just gotta pay attention, putting two and two together. Then, it becomes obvious.

 

[AngloDoom]

I've encountered two people in my life who didn't take evolution as established fact: one did not understand the concept because he said "but how do the mutated animals know to mate with each other?" The other guy literally said "I'm not related to a fucking monkey" and got all angry. Only the latter was religious.

Really, from my experiences, it seems (wilful) ignorance is the biggest reason for people not believing in evolution.

 

[White Lightning]

If Evolution is real then why haven't I evolved yet? Do you know how many things I have made faint? A whole bunch, and yet NOTHING! I can't even find my experience bar, how you gonna explain that mister science? How can we Evolve without an experience bar?

Christians: 1
Science: 0

OT: I reckon alot of it is simple misunderstanding, and a whole buttload of "faith" (See: Bibles crammed into throat). I was raised a Christian and I no longer believe any of that and I still sometimes revert back to the whole "You shouldn't do 'X' because God will get mad" every once in a while. If your parents were devout (I think I spelled that wrong) enough and passed in on to you you're going to have a hard time breaking out of it.

 

[Heronblade]

One of the strongest scientific theories to date, even stronger than the theory of Gravity

Gravity isn't a theory, it's a law.

Its both.

It might help if I cleared up a common misconception here.

A law denotes a fact of existence, a theory attempts to define why and/or how something works.

In other words, the law of gravity states that objects with mass are attracted to each other. The theory of gravity attempts to explain why this happens.

Just one of those things.

Evolution is quite simply, a fact.

That's one side of the discussion I really don't like: when people start saying that evolution is a fact. It's not. It's a scientific model, a particular scientific model which is backed by a huge pile of evidence, but it's not a "fact" and never will be, unless the hypothetical creator of the universe itself suddenly appears and tells us "yes, this is exactly how it works"

technically, the exact same thing can be stated for every single scientific law and theory that has ever been put forth, from gravity to electromagnetism to inertia, to the rules behind the behavior of various elements. The problem is, in order for any of these theories and laws to be incorrect, you have to assume increasingly absurd scenarios, with the most likely being a "Matrix" type situation.

Evolution is, for every observable instance, a fact. We cannot claim to know exactly how it works, but every single scrap of evidence tells us that species can and do change over time. Just like every single scrap of evidence we have assures us that the Earth's gravity works just fine, even though we don't understand why it works.